Distracted!

this is what I am supposed to be working on. lots of lovely felt food for the craft show coming up this weekend!

this is the little gut I made instead! Isn't he cute????? I got the pattern from Hilary's shop over at wee wonderfuls. I really love her stuff. so cute and pretty darn simple to make.

hope he doesn't wander to far....he is a gift for my cousins new baby!

do you ever wonder...

why the vcr/dvd player suddenly stops working????? my suggestion,forget the tech guy and ask the two year old! What exactly does he think will happen when he fills the vcr slot with dvds? Will it be a never ending shuffle of technicolor amusement? Needless to say I spent two months swearing at the poor machine before I figured it out. oh well back to work! I just needed a bit of comic relief around here.

Happy weekend!

It is done!

Feast your eyes on this beauty. I made this lovely prayer shawl for the most dear auntie felt's birthday pressie this year. thank god she took this lovely photo of it because I always forget to photograph my work. I used this pattern from the prayer shawl ministries, a very lovely project in and of itself. I am so happy to be able to do cool things like this for my fabulous partners in craft. Hmmmm, Auntie paper is up next what to make for her???????

Just another beautiful day......

in sunny california. A perfect day for my lovely cousin to get married on the beach!

Can I tell you how much much my children loved it.

When else would you get to bring all your favorite sand toys to a wedding. No need to be quiet because the surf drowned out all their squeals of joy. Yes son, pour all the sand on your head if you want to! what big girl, you want to catch sand crabs? Go ahead! How often do you hear that said at a wedding???

We also had these really cool caves to explore.

And guess who caught the bouquet???

that's right meeeeeeeee! yippy!

the ceremony ended with a perfectly timed pod of dolphins leaping out of the water right in front of us. like I said a perfect day!

Thru My Child's Eyes

Give a child your camera and see what she sees!

Washing day - back to basics

For many moons I made my own soap and home cleaning products. I even did it for a living and I am good at it too. How did I get away from this and start buying laundry soap again??? Honestly it is very expensive for anything that is not going to blow a hole in the ozone above your house....sort of like a flag announcing your shame. The real kicker for me with the commercial laundry soap is that they don't have to list the ingredients and most of your laundry soap is filler! Yes, that's right filler, they call it inactive ingredients if they even mention it. So you are paying for all that extra powder and water to be shipped all over the country to be poured right down your drain.

To this end I highly recommend the book shown in the photo above. It is written by one of my soapy heroes, Sandy Maine. In it you will find a fabulous laundry powder recipe that I have been using for years. It works wonders! The bonus is that it makes enough for a whole year (depending on how much laundry you have) !

So I have gone back to basics here and I am making the soap again as well as hanging the clothes on the line rather than using the dryer.

26 miles across the sea.....

Santa Catalina is waiting for me. It would have been a lovely trip over to the island but the sea was rough that day! My poor son puked seven times and my husband could only describe me as going beige. Lips and everything, all one color. Once we got there we were all fine. The island is a lovely magical place filled with old Hollywood and bison. Yes I said bison and at one point I was literally about 10 feet from four huge wild bison. Pictures you ask well there would have been had I been in charge of the camera. There would be gorgeous photos of the old casino with its amazing tile murals, pictures of all the amazing fish we saw on our semi-submersible tour we took (totally worth the money and potential puke). You would have been treated to photos of the amazing Wrigley Arabian Horse ranch hidden on the interior of the island ( where my daughter tried desperately to miss the bus so she could stay on as a ranch hand). Why, why are there no pictures of these amazing sights???? Well you see friend all of these things were viewed while in motion...do I need to explain further???? Maybe I do! I was so ill on the boat over that any possibility of being motion sick again and I was in serious meditation mode. It was awful! This resulted in the hubby and older child being in charge of the camera. Lots of pictures of my children and you can even sorta tell we are in Catalina! If it weren't for my daughter playing with the camera, I would not have this solitary shot of the harbor at Avalon. So needless to say for the boat ride home I swallowed copious amounts of Dramamine (the wonder drug in my opinion) and did just fine.